Posts by DailyLlama 128 posts • joined 16 May 2016
I've walked into rooms where there's been a problem with a printer, and without touching or saying anything, the printer has started working. I've seen other people do it too, so I know it's not just my electromagnetic field (although I often turn street lights off when I walk past them)...
We had two buildings separated by a busy road, and instead of an expensive cable being laid, involving stopping traffic, digging up the road etc, someone decided to install two line of sight wireless devices.
Which was fine, until the car dealership next door had a delivery, and the triple decker car transporter parked in front of it...
While working in Uxbridge, I was sent down to out office in Newton Abbot (Devon) to have a look at a server that wasn't working. So I got in my car, and set off at 8am. With traffic and roadworks, I arrived on site at just after 2pm. Walked up to the server, moved the connected mouse, and got no response on the monitor, so I restarted it. Everything was fine after that. So I got in my car and went home. I was in the office for precisely 10 minutes, and spent 10 hours driving.
I was halfway through an anecdote about an old lady dropping a tenner on her way out of the supermarket (The guy behind her picked it up and started to walk off in a different direction, so *I* pushed him in the right direction and called her to say that this bloke had found her money that she dropped and wanted to return it), when I realised that one of the people in the group was the person who'd actually done it and I'd seen it happen... very embarrassing.
Paris, because well, it's embarrassing...
I put someone on hold once to complain about them to my manager, and even though the LED on the hold button lit up, it did not mute my mic.
Forunately, I didn't call them names or anything, just complained about how slow and unhelpful they were, but she didn't say anything, and just emailed my manager after the conversation. We all got "retrained" after that. And I got a new phone :-)
I used to work in an environmental lab, and one of the computers stopped working one day. I couldn't get it to do anything, so I popped the case, and found that all the acid in the air (due to the specific testing they did in this particular lab area) had eaten a lot of the solder, and many of the components weren't attached to anything anymore...
We drastically increased ventilation and fume extraction after that...
But I've heard this story from three separate people at different times, so I believe it's true.
A man starts a job at a large crisp manufacturer in the UK. Let's call them Strollers. At the time (I don't know if they still do it, because of this) all new recruits in the head office were sent to one of the manufacturing sites to see how the products were made, and what their core business was about.
They're taken through the site induction, given security passes etc, then given a tour of the offices, where they meet and greet all the local staff, before suffering a morning full of the usual corporate nonsense and lectures. Then, just before lunch, they're told that they're visiting the plant.
So they get kitted out in the relevant PPE, and *stroll* into the building. As they go in the entrance, someone in a hi-vis waistcoat explains the safety procedures, and what happens if the fire alarm sounds.
Tired after a morning full of someone else talking, and no doubt looking forward to lunch, our hero gazes off into the distance and stops listening. Somewhere along the line, he hears the words "Press the red button". Looking to his left, he sees such a red button. Pointing to it, he asks "Like this one?"
"Yes" comes the reply.
He pushes the button. There's the slow inevitable sounds of EVERYTHING turning off. Fans stop whirring, conveyor belts stop moving, ovens stop baking etc...
Then there's uncomfortable silence.
"Why did you press that?"
"Because you told me to."
"I said, 'If there's an emergency, press the red button'"...
Yes, our hero shut down *Strollers* Crisps manufacturing plant for a couple of days, as once the machines are down, everything has to be drained, cleaned, and made ready to start up again.
*names changed to protect the guilty
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